September 19, 2018

I'm overhearing the television, so I'm not going to link to anything, but I keep hearing the indicia of elite status — notably, that Blasey is a college professor.

I'm trying to think of how her allegations should be handled, and I want like cases to be treated alike. When will one allegation from long ago justify delaying the Senate confirmation process and the opening of new investigations?

The answer cannot be: when the accuser has elite status!

I'm thinking of how Paula Jones was denigrated 20 years ago. "If you drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find," James Carville said famously.

[Carville] with Hillary's assent — set the tone on how the Clintons would treat women who dared accuse former President Clinton of sexual harassment....

[Paula Jones] wasn't fancy or rich, just a working woman sexually harassed by Bill when he was governor of Arkansas. But she was denigrated by Clinton's top advisers as "trailer park" trash, as someone so craven she'd crawl on dirt for the cash to slander Bill.

She was telling the truth. It was a straightforward sexual harassment case. If Bill had been a private-sector CEO, he'd have been fired.

But Hillary and Bill fought back, using the "nuts and sluts strategy," denigrating Jones and others, including Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and the intern Monica Lewinsky.

So what is the standard we are creating? How will we apply it in the future? I'm seeing analogies to Anita Hill, but how is Christine Blasey Ford like Anita Hill other than that she's challenging a Supreme Court nominee? Anita Hill worked with the nominee (Clarence Thomas) in a professional context. That was not in question. With Blasey, we only have her assertion that she was once in a room with Brett Kavanaugh. How will we treat other women who assert that they were once with the nominee? What is the principled plan that we can agree on?!

303 comments:

A college professor is less credible than the average American. Most of them are broken people who belong in asylums. If she were a housewife from the suburbs not engaged in anti Trump hobbies, she’d be credible.

However, by December of that year the Blaseys were able to refinance the mortgage, and in January 1997 UMLIC filed a motion to dismiss their earlier petition. Judge Martha Kavanaugh granted that motion on 4 February 1997, thus formally bringing an end to the foreclosure proceedings against the Blaseys.

So she did preside and the foreclosure, while prevented by financial maneuvering, must have been an embarrassment.

You file criminal charges against a man who commits sexual assault and/or rape against you, and prove it in court, or it didn't happen.

How do you, a law professor, continue to advocate that some action outside of the criminal justice system is justified?

Answer: Marxist feminism. You're on a greater mission to manufacture the New Man and the New Woman. The incredibly boring New Man and New Woman you outlined in your crazed Marxist feminist rant about rape yesterday. Gogol called the New Man and the New Woman of your dreams "Dead Souls."

The "standard," such as it is, is blindingly simple: If the accusation is directed at a Democrat, it is not credible and must be memory-holed post-haste. (Cf. Karen Monahan's entirely credible accusations against Keith Ellison.) If the accusation is directed against a Republican, it is credible because SHUT UP!

Since when were you concerned with upholding principles? Remember: Kavanaugh is getting Kennedy's seat, he's too good for the post and he isn't OWED the post and we should 'believe women', even folks with no date, no location, no witnesses, no evidence long past the statute of limitations.

Seems you are a bit late to the party and on the wrong side of PRINCIPLES.

2. Yes, we should listen gently and openly to allegations of sexual assault. We should also evaluate the allegations by two criteria: (1) Are they made soon after the event in question? and (2) Are they made under oath?

3. If the allegations pass muster, we must then do two things: (1) Evaluate the evidence and (2) ensure that the accused has due process to defend against the claim.

This isn't hard. The Dems have a different approach. If the accused is our opponent, then fry him! (Thomas). If the accused is on our team, then ignore it! (Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton re Broaddrick).

Do liberal media notice the elitism oozing from their discussion of the credibility of Christine Blasey Ford?

Self awareness has never been the collective media's strong suit. They're geared to project their feelings outward. They aren't equiped to look inward. They have limted capability to actually analyze what they're saying, to question themselves or to try to imagine how non elite viewers may interpret what they're saying. They only think of pushing stories and narratives. They're very simple creatures really.

In war you can't argue with a bombardment. My great-uncle (my fathers uncle) was killed while that side of the family was fleeing from the Japanese massacre. They came under artillery fire crossing the district of Paco. They all ran into a shattered concrete house, but my great-uncle was the last, and there was no room for him but at the very doorway.

A shell landed on the street and its shrapnel killed him. American or Japanese, fired with some valid military purpose or not, who will ever know?

There are no principles in your state of politics. Its not even clear whether there is any benefit to anyone in any particular action.

Given the amount of time it's possible she had a bad experience and also currently suffers from TDS. Her memories have taken a concrete current event and merged them with the haze of the past. I'd think to give credence to her it's not enough to take her at her word. She'd need an in-depth review of her life.

And on the other side events like this when we are young indelibly stamp the event onto consciousness. A person suppresses it or heals past it? I've seen strong women slap these types of events silly. I've seen weak women and men be forever tortured by a child hood event.

The current level of TDS hysteria though and the timing of the revelation make me question the motive. People do weird things in the Trumpverse.

Thank you, yes! That is one of the many problems with the concept of "credibly accused". In this case, all that makes it credible- that we know of- is that she lived in a neighborhood near enough Kavenaugh to go to a girls's school of similar elite status as his boy's school with a few years overlap.

That's all we know. Then--- she's white. She's currently well employed. She's well educated. Is that what makes her credible? Because her story is vague. Her story is new. There is no proof, and the little evidence she offers- her therapists notes- are different than her story now. Does that make it credible?

Give her a date to appear, next Wednesday is more than enough and make it clear she will be testifying under oath and will be prosecuted for perjury if she lies. If she doesn't show up, hold the vote on the Thursday and on the Friday censure Feinstein and Schumer and strip them of the minority chairmanship positions of whatever committees they have that position.

Then Trump should give a deadline of the following Friday for the full release as per his order and if the departments and agencies fail to comply fire all the responsible personnel for insubordination. Then appoint replacements and task one or more prosecutors to look into the crimes of the Obama Administration and same for Mueller's prosecutors who have a shady past.

While Georgetown Prep (K.'s high school) is an "elite" school, the Ford's alma mater, Holton Arms is every bit as snooty of a girl's school. It ain't like the alumanae of HA go on to be scullery maids.

A great deal of modern American feminism can be seen through the class lens of upper class women defending their turf against all they see as possible interlopers (sexual, familial, & economic).

No, you don't. When "women's bodies" are at issue in appointment cases, you want to tip the scales.

"She was telling the truth. It was a straightforward sexual harassment case. If Bill had been a private-sector CEO, he'd have been fired. But Hillary and Bill fought back, using the "nuts and sluts strategy," denigrating Jones and others, including Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and the intern Monica Lewinsky."

So there's your answer: there can be no principled approach until the Dems change.

"So what is the standard we are creating?"

The only standard is: anything that serves Dem purposes at the moment, goes.

"How will we treat other women who assert that they were once with the nominee?"

"We" will just think of other question that will "destroy" a potential appointee.

"What is the principled plan that we can agree on?!"

There is no such plan, and we cannot agree on one, except there is the principled amoral plan of the Democrats to destroy procedures and institutions for their own benefit. The only principled counterplan is not to play their game in any way--in cases of future Fording, to ignore the accusation entirely, and treat post-Fordist manipulators with utter contempt.

The GOP should only revert to our preferred respect for institutions when the Dems have spent a generation showing good faith.

Althouse knows lots of female (and male) college professors and knows that they are not paragons of virtue and character.

I'm reminded of two of my law school professors who had affairs with my female classmates. And then there was the Big Ten law professor who gave a one night lecture at Creighton and he propositioned two of my Catholic female classmates; one was married and the other engaged. The year was 1980 or 1981. I could find the date real easy. The offer (and rejection) was made in the Law School Commons. See, it's not that difficult to remember events like that even decades ago. The women told me about the next day. I was swilling wine at the time and I luckily did not hear that offer. I would have punched him.

You have an MD, even a DDS, or a PhD in a hard science, okay, I'll give you the Dr. title. Anything else, no way. The phonies are much more inclined to insist on the title, and it's really fun to deny it to them.

Memories of the Dems' High Tech Lynching of the conservative black man from Savannah , Georgia. Not a single Dem defended him. We were in the age of Industrial Strength Sexual Harrassment law suits and blackmail of the big Corporations for Threatening Environments. That was totally accepted because the married men wanted their working wives protected from boss men who had them submissive for eight hrs a day.

Then Sweet Old Bill from Arkansas hit the Trifecta of perfect boss man harrassment of secretaries with State Patrol pimps. The Dems instantly morphed into, "That is just sex and everybody does it in secretly when the young siren seduces boss men."

Now we are presumed to all think that a crowd of teenagers in 1982 at an unsupervised house party complete with swim suits in the pool (ala the Playboy Mansion) cannot hit on another teen in a swimsuit at the drunken party who turns them down without thinking that is an ATTEMPTED RAPE.

It's a recovered memory, thus the missing links and penumbric inference to fill in the holes (not whores). She may not know what she does not know. Feinstein, on the other hand, does not enjoy the benefit of tolerance afforded to internal confusion.

I, for one, suggest we ask Kieth Ellison for his opinion on this situation.Also, I suggest we charge him with domestic violence, try him, and if he is convicted based on the evidence presented to a jury of his peers in court, sentence him appropriately. See how that might work?

BAG wrote:8. Aha! You didn't give Merrick Garland a vote, no more Scotus picks for you! The seat remains open!

The Republicans were above board at what they did, and it was quite a gamble. If Hillary had won in 2016 she would nominated someone far more liberal than Garland, and the liberals make a harder to crack bloc vote than the conservatives on the court.The democrats are resorting to bad faith arguments and character assassination tactics, yet they will deny it. The GOP did not attempt character assassination against Garland. The closest they came to attacking Garland, the person, was to say that he was not the moderate his backers claimed that he was.

This has nothing to do with principles, just power plays. You yourself said that in an earlier post. You wouldn't know about principles anyway. Your an atheist, you don't have any 8 1/2 x 11 inch crib sheet that runs your life. Your only principle is to question everything even God . You stand for nothing, except if it's to your advantage. Your one of those that Bloom calls a basement dweller. Nothing but a deconstructionist with parsing skills.

With Blasey, we only have her assertion that she was once in a room with Brett Kavanaugh. How will we treat other women who assert that they were once with the nominee? What is the principled plan that we can agree on?!

Call 911.

File a police report.

Let the justice system run it's course.

Of course the powerful will be protected but only if they are democrats. We have ways to get the word out about democrat abusers.

I am less likely to believe her based on her "status" as a college professor, especially a professor at a CA university not teaching a STEM discipline. Her career indicates she is extremely likely to be on the far left fringe of American politics. If she was an accountant or dentist from Iowa I would be more likely to not immediately dismiss her claims.

Lewis: Yes, and truth is the protests against Garland not being chosen seemed a bit muted at the time. I think Dems were making the same calculation, that Hillary would get elected and pick an even better (for them) candidate. So their protests at the time were of the we-protest-everything-Republicans-do-even-if-we-like-it variety. It only really became an issue when the tables turned.

And btw, I'm seeing leftists claiming that Ford should be believed because she told her story in 2012, and it would've taken a lot of prognostication to set that up ahead of time of this nomination. No mention, of course, of Toobin's article in 2012 saying Kavanaugh would be a Romney pick. Do I believe the Leftists spinning this lie are unaware of it? No. They are just assuming the low info voters haven't, and they're correctly confident the media won't tell them.

Another disgraceful performance in Congress adding fuel to the growing demand that we have a constitutional convention which will break up the vast bureaucracy we created to run the Cold War. Instead of addressing the issues we elected Clinton who makes Judge K. appear saintly. We had a party for a generation and now we need to reform our government, transferring to the states much of the responsibility which is being dramatically mismanaged from Washington by the Congress.If a state wishes to ban abortion it may because it is citizens can go to a neighboring state. Abortion is only one issue among many but I mention it because abortion has been turned into a form of birth control which is disgraceful. A genuine reform to protective innocent has become a mockery of motherhood, degrading each one of us,

I think having her testify is a good plan. What would the FBI do after all this time? Interview anyone who might remember anything about these two people, or a party they might both have been at, without knowing the year or the house? She might say he was drunk--almost too drunk to stay on his feet, much less get her clothes off or perform sexually. But (she might say) he showed a clear intention until buddy interrupted. Kavanaugh might be asked if he ever had blackout drunks back in the day. If he says yes, the Dems might say ah ha, things might have happened as Ford says, if there was one particular night that somehow matches the night she can't really describe in any detail. That's not even a he said/she said--no one can know that a particular night he doesn't remember matches a particular night she barely remembers. Our host seems to hope that if Kavanaugh says he never (unlike his buddy) had blackout drunks, he can then be caught in a lie and fail to be confirmed for that reason. I think Senators (fairly soon) will simply have to decide.

Ford herself has never acted like there is anything urgent about this--at least until last week. She didn't write to the chair of the Committee, or the whole committee, or even to both of her (female, Dem) Senators--only to Feinstein. It must have been clear to her that Feinstein was sitting on the letter. Was that OK with her? Did Feinstein tell her it was a strategy to cause delay or withdrawal of the nomination? In any case, why should anyone on earth treat the matter with more urgency than Ford herself did, or Feinstein? Let's not forget: Kavanaugh was nominated to the Circuit Court in 2003, and his confirmation didn't come until 2006. Where was Ford?

Related to this is, What on earth did Ford think would happen when she sent the letter to her US representative? That someone would just shake the anonymous accusation in Kavanaugh's face and say, "You sexually assaulted a woman and are not fit to sit on the Supreme Court! Case closed!"

I don't how Stanford handles Title IX violations, but it seems to me Ford expected something like the standard college kangaroo court. Just go to the "Administration" with your complaint and have the boy expelled. No need to bother with witnesses, evidence, confrontation, "uncomfortable" stuff like that.

What makes you think that there *is* a principled plan that we can agree on? If instead we have a conflict between those who believe that the people who voted for Donald Trump should be able to get the sort of SCOTUS nominee that he promised, and those who will not ever agree to a potential 5th vote against Roe v. Wade, then there is no principled plan possible.

I'm surprised you have not, in response to these simultaneous and extremely different episodes, taken it upon yourself Althouse, to blog about Monahan/Ellison comparing and contrasting with Ford/Kavanaugh.

2. It's also a terrible thing to FALSELY accuse a man of sexual assault.

The Dems are loud about 1, but awfully weak on 2.

-Duke Lacross-Rolling Stone Magazine on frat house-Tawana Brawley

There is no reason to listen to any Democrat Senator or Congressman, particularly the female ones, on sexual harrassment or assault issues, until and unless they explain what they did to assist Juanita Broaddrick in making her credible rape allegation against Bill Clinton.

Something good will come from this though.In the future males will refrain from sex or hanky-panky until married, will demand unisex dormrooms, will have chaperones at parties, parties where they will refrain from drinking too much, or at all.Not because they will be virtuous but because otherwise they may be subject too an unprovable complaint form any skank any time (/s of course).

Ann, I agree with you here. It is crazy that Hillary is anywhere close to a tv camera right now. She actively fought for Bill Clinton’s political survival, and played a big role in denigrating the multiple women who came forward.

Democrats are completely blind to how twofaced this makes them look. This is not going to end well for Democrats or a blue wave.

There was a time, long ago, when college professors were thought to be poorly paid otherwordly beings totally devoted to their science or field of teaching living in "ivory towers" and having no political aspirations.Good times, but long past.

The principled plan the Democrats agree on is that accusations against Republicans are always true and accusations against Democrats are always false. For some reason, a lot of people can't seem to go along with that.

That lefty activist cunts, particularly those who are worthless academic parasites on the taxpayyers, should never be believed or humored if they wait more than one year or whenever it is most politically damaging to make their claims, whichever comes first.

Admittedly off topic but am I the only one to suspect Chuck and Inga have hooked up and are on a honeymoon somewhere? The silence is deafening. And a couple of weeks ago, Inga revealed sha has recently shed forty pounds, a sure sign of being in love.

Kavanaugh is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of having been nominated by Donald Trump. As such he would be the fifth vote on the Supreme Court to put women and minorities into chains and gays into concentration camps. Or so I'm told.

Several have already stated the obvious. 1. Innocent until proven guilty 2. Due Process 3. Statue of limitations exist for a reason 4. Our system of justice is weighted in favor of the accused, and distrusts the abuse of power wielded by the government

"...If Democrats had believed Ford’s story was convincing, and had followed the committee-hearing process in good faith, we’d have heard about it in July, and we’d have been hearing about nothing else since — especially during the hours upon hours that Kavanaugh answered aggressively provocative, politically loaded questions under oath. Senator Feinstein knew about Ford’s allegation all that time and never uttered a peep about it — not in face-to-face interviews with Kavanaugh or in her rounds of questioning at the hearing. And don’t tell me Feinstein had to stay mum to honor Ford’s desire for anonymity. There is good reason to believe Ford had no intention of remaining anonymous (hiring Democrat-activist lawyers, taking a polygraph, etc.). But even if Ford truly wanted to remain unidentified, Senator Feinstein could easily have questioned Kavanaugh about the purported incident without mentioning Ford’s name. That would have preserved anonymity while adhering to the hearing process. Instead, the Democrats’ ranking committee member contemptuously undermined the committee’s process, and now other Senate Democrats are following her lead.

In the meantime, Judge Kavanaugh is presumed innocent, and his unambiguous claim of innocence rings true in the context of everything else we have learned about him.

When someone is accused of criminal conduct, the burden is not supposed to be on the accused to convince us that it didn’t happen. There must first be convincing evidence that it did happen before the accused is called on to answer the charge. Yet Judge Kavanaugh did not remain silent. He has insisted on answering, essentially proclaiming: “It is not just that I am not guilty; I am innocent. It is not just that this allegation hasn’t come close to being proved; I did not do it. And I am prepared to testify to that effect, publicly or in closed session, anytime, anyplace.”

As I argued yesterday, you are not going to have decent, meritorious people in law and politics if Democrats are permitted to mug Kavanaugh the way they mugged Judge Bork and Justice Thomas, the way they try to mug every Republican judicial candidate whose nomination threatens to close off the courts as an avenue of radical social change — i.e., whose confirmation makes it more likely that the Left will have to try to convince voters and lawmakers in the democratic process, rather than have unaccountable judges impose progressive pieties.

The long-term goal here is to make the judicial-confirmation process so notoriously savage and demeaning that no sensible, well-meaning conservative or moderate person would agree to put himself and his family through it. The idea is to stock the courts with nothing but progressives and mediocrities willing to roll over for progressives. It is a disgrace that this should happen in this republic, and in connection with the courts, which are not supposed to be political forces, but which have been converted into an uber-political institution that progressives are desperate to control."

Assertions should be ignored, unless there's some evidence, other than only remembering a supposed assault and having only one beer.

The media should be ignored, if all that's reporting is hearsay conjured from the pit of their evil soul. If not, someone could make a comment like "I remember seeing Ann Althouse kick a kitten, when she was in college." and you are forced to defend your character, with a rabid media spending hours expounding their opinion.

@Althouse, the real "indicia of elite status" is not that she's a college professor, but that she graduated from Holton-Arms School.

From Wikipedia: Holton-Arms is an independent college-preparatory school for girls in grades 3–12, located in Bethesda, Maryland. ... Tuition for 2018-19 is $42,975 for grades 3-6 and additional expenses for grades 7-12. [Emphasis mine.] Of course the tuition was not $42,000 35 years ago, but as I recollect it was still roughly the cost of a very, very nice car. If you're looking for a spoiled rich girl, Holton-Arms would be a great place to start.

"The only way to stop this with the Court, is to reverse Roe v Wade. I am becoming convinced of this by the hysteria we see the past month."

Well, that's nice. But the very people who are creating the hysteria - the Left/liberal - are also the people who Do NOT want to reverse Roe v. Wade.

Further, right now, you have 4 solid votes to keep Roe and only 2 solid votes (Alioto and Thomas) to overturn. If the R Judges had wanted to overturn Roe they would've done so in the early 1990s when you had 7 R judges and 2 Dems.

And do you really think Roberts would vote to overturn Roe? Why do you think Spector and the D's all loved Roberts?

Why go back to Clinton and Jones? Democrats insisted Corfman, a customer service rep at an Alabama payday lender, be taken seriously when she accused Roy Moore of sexual assault. They did their best to ignore Leeann Tweeden, TV news anchor, when she accused Al Franken of sexual harassment.

College professors in search of the truth, whether in music or particle physics, is one thing.College professors seeing themselves as cadre called to indoctrinating the young to fight for a faith based political system, no matter how apparently attractive, quite another.

I might add, that the contrast of the treatment of Keith Ellison's former girlfriend, even though she has medical documentation of the injuries she suffered, with the treatment of Christine Ford, is breathtaking. But Christine Ford is a wealthy, white professor while Karen Monahan is a woman of color with no academic credentials.

This is as amusing as when people indicate that someone is probably especially virtuous because he is a small business man, a pastor, or a police officer. There are a great number of personally wonderful professors, small business men, pastors, and police officers, but there are also plenty of not so great ones, including some that are liars. They're just like anyone else.

I've never seen such bend-over-backwards, craven, hypocrisy as with Ms. Johnson.

She tosses out a ridiculous story, an obvious political hatchet job, without even providing a date and location of the groping (hysterically labeled by others as "sexual assault" "attmempted Rape" and/or Attempted murder).

Everything about it is fake, and pre-planned.

But to get back to Paula Jones. The Dems would LOVE for Dr. Johnson to have been say, Kavenaugh's family Hispanic maid. That would've made it 10x better.

"How will we treat other women who assert that they were once with the nominee?"

-- We know. The Democrat senators have ignored the 65 women who know him and two who dated him. So, it matters not whether they were with the nominee or not, but rather, whether they're a useful bludgeon. I don't know if Republicans would play their hands differently here if shoes were opposite, except for all the times they have (like with Edwards, etc.) They'll go for blood, but rarely like this.

Hah this is easy. The operating standard is any allegation against a republican for any reason at any time is legit and anything against a democrat needs to be dismissed out of hand. There. That was easy.

I was trained as an academic psychologist, but chose to go into business consulting and clinical work for my 30+ year career. One of the reasons I chose not to go into academia was the incredible political bias of most psychology professors.

I recall an academic retreat (1983) in which there were no voices of disagreement over blatantly political issues. (I smartly kept my mouth shut). One professor (who was later tenured at Yale) gave a talk in which she proposed that George H.W. Bush (the sitting VP) was clinically "psychotic." This woman was a licensed clinical psychologist and a highly esteemed academic.

BTW, I can recall the names, dates and location of this specific conference although it was a somewhat terrifying experience.

Her name was Dr. Susan Frank and she had never met Vice President Bush. Nonetheless, she was completely without doubt that he was psychotic. It was not an offhand remark. It was a significant part of her presentation to a large group of grad students and faculty, most of whom were from schools in Illinois.

It was October, 1983 at a retreat campground in Brown County Indiana. Apparently the trauma did not affect my memory 35 years later.

Go to any ten, random prosecutors around he country. Develop a parallel scenario:- Long time gap- No definitive location- Changing (ever expanding) level of accusation- Conflicting/changing/not remembering who was present- Unsure of date (even year!) of alleged event- Only names given absolutely deny story, although one may be of questionable character.- Not remembering easy details like how the alleged victim got there or got home.

Now I know the bar for criminal prosecution may be too high a standard for judging the Judge. But I suspect you'll get all ten somewhere on the "Don't call us, we'll call you" or, You got nuttin' lady" spectrum. Of course spoken in a way to not make your feelz tingle.

Ann, I agree with you here. It is crazy that Hillary is anywhere close to a tv camera right now. She actively fought for Bill Clinton’s political survival, and played a big role in denigrating the multiple women who came forward.

Democrats are completely blind to how twofaced this makes them look. This is not going to end well for Democrats or a blue wave.

I write the above as a committed Democrat.

I takes a bare minimum of self awareness to reach the conclusion Once Written has come to.

Readering is too stupid to even manage that.

McConell and Trump should hold hearings every Monday until mid October and then vote.

Spartacus, the Chinese spy, Jerry Brown's mistress, and Fauxcahauntus should be given free reign to dig through Kavanaugh's life and given a full 4 hour hearing every Monday to dance around and humiliate Kavanaugh.

We should give them elevated benches to look down upon Kavanaugh and point 1000 cameras at them.

Same thing happened with Clarence Thomas at his hearings. When all the office secretaries came in and testified, they agreed with him and against Hill's version of how the office worked. The Democrats said "they're just secretaries" and even asked them who they were to contradict their betters (lawyers). The secretaries, to their credit, were not intimidated; they said we're just telling the truth.

Blogger chuck said..."It's also funny because many of us have observed that the people who major in psychology are crazy."

But I'm married to a psychologist who's not crazy! Which was a very important reason for marrying her. Of course, her acceptance of my proposal immediately raised suspicions. Channeling Groucho, "I wouldn't marry a woman who would have me as a husband". Maybe she regarded me as a fixer-upper.

It's a common refrain that people are drawn to majoring in psychology because they have psychological issues. They want to understand the nuts and bolts of the various talk therapy options on offer, and whether or not they might help their problems.

I best like Albert Ellis' Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT):

"...According to REBT, it is largely our thinking about events that leads to emotional and behavioral upset. With an emphasis on the present, individuals are taught how to examine and challenge their unhelpful thinking which creates unhealthy emotions and self-defeating/self-sabotaging behaviors."

http://albertellis.org/rebt-cbt-therapy/

Accomplished by the application of General Semantics.

I doubt very much our precious snowflake Christine delved into REBT. It might have helped her.

The only way to stop this with the Court, is to reverse Roe v Wade. I am becoming convinced of this by the hysteria we see the past month.

I have been pointing this out for at least 20 years. This is a political debate to be decided by the people, the way it was before Roe. Abortion was legal in every state in the Union. Historians can help me here, but were there even state wide laws barring abortions? My take was that the local elected prosecutor was the peoples community standards Judge. If Dr. Gosnell was running a string of pregnant women in the front door and out the back,'fixed' The citizens of the community would go the elected prosecutor and demand action be taken. The prosecutor heeds the community values, or, the one that replaces him/her, will. The people deciding the rules they live under.

On a broader scale a return to federalism, and fealty to the 10th amendment would douse our current level of hysteria on all levels. The stupid claim that President Trump is all by himself a danger to constitution, or lie and smear to keep a person off SCOTUS because he will rule on cases before the court on the way the constitution is written, not as leftist wish it was written, can only be understood by admitting the federal govt exerts way more power over the people than the constitution allows.

Kavanaugh needs to do the right thing and withdraw from the running for the Supreme Court. You will be tainted for life, dude, even worse than disgusting, lying Clarence "sob story" Thomas. "I was a poor black boy from Pinpoint Georgia, who regularly got his ass whooped by his domineering granddaddy." "I (Brett Kavanaugh) was a little league baseball player from a rich family in DC. The world owes me a living and a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court to rape the little people less fortunate than me for eternity or close to it. It's all about ME! I wanna rape you, and there is no one who can hear your screams with my Nazi jackboot on your throat."

If someone is a college professor then career advancement will hire their statements.

If someone is party activist then party advantage will hire them.

(Assuming of course that the person is for sale.)

So you ask who benefits? as part of the evaluation.

But also you ask: Could any man in America defend himself if the basic charge was: "You were a high school male? Thirty years later, can you prove that you did not do something that you have forgotten about?" Wouldn't accepting this type of accusation make it impossible to appoint any man to anything?

Kavanaugh's educational background and mine are VERY similar (Jesuit/double-Ivy). I had nothing against his appointment and have not formed a judgment on these allegations. I expect the Republicans to hold the Senate so as a means to prevent the Court from going farther to to the right I view this all as futile as an attempt to stop that. I will vote against Feinstein in November. Her handling of this just more evidence she is past it.

So I look forward to intelligent commentary on this issue. Just not finding it among most of these comments.

Overturn Roe, send the question to the voters, and let us all move on.

Pass an amendment to the Constitution supporting abortion rights.

There, fixed. The Court doesn't matter anymore.

If you can't get the support for a constitutional amendment, maybe it's not a right. All the other rights have amendments. There are lots of things that should be in the constitution but are not, and the Court doesn't insert them on its own.

"Elitist boys school" my bleeding backside. Holton Arms is every bit as much of an elitist girls school.

Kavanaugh's father belonged to Burning Tree Golf Club. Ms. Blasey Ford's father was President of the Burning Tree Golf Club. In the turned up nose social climbing status game, Kavanaugh's daddy was a mere member. Ms. Ford's father was El Jefe Grande of the Golf Club.

Actually both the young Kavanaugh and the young Ms. Blasey came from pretty swank social circles with not much to distinguish between them status wise. She was no poor scullery maid subject to droit de seigneur from her social betters.

You file criminal charges against a man who commits sexual assault and/or rape against you, and prove it in court, or it didn't happen.

How do you, a law professor, continue to advocate that some action outside of the criminal justice system is justified?

Answer: Marxist feminism. You're on a greater mission to manufacture the New Man and the New Woman. The incredibly boring New Man and New Woman you outlined in your crazed Marxist feminist rant about rape yesterday. Gogol called the New Man and the New Woman of your dreams "Dead Souls."

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That's just not true. If a friend punches you, and you decide not to press charges because you're too busy and you don't want to get involved in extended prosecution, you can still stop being friends with them on account of the punch. There's no reason to say it didn't happen. If a customer comes into your bar and pisses on the floor, you can eject them from your bar without needing to have full-on prosecution. If someone assaults you and then shows up at your bar to apply for a job, it's perfectly acceptable to not hire them on the basis of that assault, despite that the person was not convicted.

And it's broader than that. If someone assaults your spouse, your spouse comes home and gives you the person's name, and then the person applies for a job where you're making the decisions, you probably should not hire them. You certainly don't need to await a criminal prosecution.

The idea that the criminal adjudication is the end-all _outside of the criminal justice system_ is more statist (and therefore correlatively more marxist) than the alternative.

The obvious political manipulation of the assault on Kavanaugh's reputation obvious to everyone except the news media (unless it had been conducted by the Republicans in which case it would have been front-pages on the failing New York Times).

Blogger readering said...Kavanaugh's educational background and mine are VERY similar (Jesuit/double-Ivy). I had nothing against his appointment and have not formed a judgment on these allegations. I expect the Republicans to hold the Senate so as a means to prevent the Court from going farther to to the right I view this all as futile as an attempt to stop that. I will vote against Feinstein in November. Her handling of this just more evidence she is past it.

So I look forward to intelligent commentary on this issue. Just not finding it among most of these comments."

The informed commentary is amongst most of the comments here, you just refuse to see them. As for voting against Feinstein, that's hardly any sort of a gesture when her opponent is even more left than her. Perhaps I missed it, but there isn't a Republican for Senate in CA this year. Now voting for the Republican would have been a real gesture. The one thing you can rap Feinstein and Schumer with this fraudulent spectacle the Democrats are presenting is that they make it more likely the next SCOTUS nominee by Trump will be your nightmare. He and the Senate Republicans will conclude if you are going to do the time might as well commit the crime. In addition, this transparent fraud appears to be energizing Republican voters to show up and vote in November.

Blogger Once written, twice... said...Ann, I agree with you here. It is crazy that Hillary is anywhere close to a tv camera right now. She actively fought for Bill Clinton’s political survival, and played a big role in denigrating the multiple women who came forward.

Democrats are completely blind to how twofaced this makes them look. This is not going to end well for Democrats or a blue wave.

I write the above as a committed Democrat.

9/19/18, 1:50 PM

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Almost ditto. I'm not a committed Democrat, but I'm on the far left around here for sure. Clinton should not be at the fore here.

My only response to you, since you ask, that I think Ellison has more to do with him than her. Another Thomas-Hill (and after watching those hearings I disbelieved him, but the Republic still stands). But Ellison seems bad.

I'm puzzled by commenters on this blog who blanketly insult vast swaths of other commenters in the broadest terms but do not themselves make specific arguments or rebuttals. If you don't like the tenor of the blog comments, why do you keep posting or even reading the comment section? If you disagree with a specific argument or point, why not construct a counterargument rather than just insulting people? What do you hope to accomplish?

I’d suggest liberals try to stop stressing over Hillary. She’s done, I suspect none of us liberals want her to run and the Democratic Party knows it and will run someone who is going to inspire snd excite the base, that’s not Hillary. Who cares if she shows up on a TV show now and again. Meh, boring.

Blogger iowan2 said...The idea that the criminal adjudication is the end-all _outside of the criminal justice system_ is more statist (and therefore correlatively more marxist) than the alternative.

No one is talking about adjudication, we are talking about divining the truth. Not so surprising the standard used by our criminal justice system is a good template. So why not use it?

9/19/18, 3:26 PM

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Because, as is clear from any good 1L criminal law class, the standard used by our criminal justice system is a standard fit for that purpose. Other purposes use other standards. See all of my examples previously. Beyond a reasonable doubt is _not_ an appropriate standard for ordinary life. If you get punched in the face in a dark alley, and you're pretty sure it was me but not 100% sure it was me (it was dark, after all, and you were jumped), you are a raging idiot if you walk into another dark alley with me just because you couldn't divine the truth beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you get punched in the face in a dark alley, and you're pretty sure it was me but not 100% sure it was me (it was dark, after all, and you were jumped), you are a raging idiot if you walk into another dark alley with me just because you couldn't divine the truth beyond a reasonable doubt.

“...you are a raging idiot if you walk into another dark alley with me just because you couldn't divine the truth beyond a reasonable doubt.”

That’s a fitting description for about 85% of the conservative commenters here. Divination of truth seems to be their weak point, hence all the blabbering with bated breath about one conspiracy theory after another and their continued support for the Fraud in Chief.

The closest they came to attacking Garland, the person, was to say that he was not the moderate his backers claimed that he was.

It doesn't even matter whether he was, because he was replacing Scalia, who was no one's idea of a moderate, and we have it on good authority that "the balance of the court" must never, ever shift. Right?

Enh, obviously it may shift, but only in one direction.

Re: "Doctor," I will believe that the professor from "Palo Alto University" -- what are the odds, d'you think, that she's hoping people will assume she's actually talking about Stanford, and someone just left out the definite article? -- merits "Dr." when the NYT starts calling Paul Krugman "Dr. Krugman." If everyone with a doctorate were called "Dr.," we'd be facing an honorifics shortage.

Hahahaha, I’m not here to be liked. If you’re speaking about liberals in general, guess what? We don’t like you much either, how could we, you’ve brought this country closer to ruin. You’re a blithering idiot.

"What is comical is that at the same time so many of you lament elitism, you behave as elitists. You don’t recognize Trump’s elitism, nor do you recognize it in yourselves."

What is comical are Inga's gross generalizations and her inability to differentiate "elite" from "elitist."

Many of the commenters here are elite in the sense of educational and professional credentials. I am one of them.

It is too bad that you are jealous Inga. You simply could not cut the mustard. When I was consulting with executives from Fortune 500 companies, you were cleaning bedpans and giving enemas. We worked according to our abilities and the value we added determined our compensation.

My life has been nothing close to elitist. I grew up out-of-wedlock with a blue collar teenager as a mother. Nothing was handed to me. I worked in factories, warehouses, waiting tables, psych hospitals, retail clerking and other non-elite jobs. I have renovated three houses on my own. I have probably worked more blue collar jobs than the Bedpan Commando could dream of.

That is not the resume of an elitist. I will bet that others have similar stories.

“When I was consulting with executives from Fortune 500 companies, you were cleaning bedpans and giving enemas. We worked according to our abilities and the value we added determined our compensation.”

I also was saving lives, comforting the sick and looking at useless elitist assholes like you and being grateful you only became a psychologist instead of a real doctor.

Michael K said...If you get punched in the face in a dark alley, and you're pretty sure it was me but not 100% sure it was me (it was dark, after all, and you were jumped), you are a raging idiot if you walk into another dark alley with me just because you couldn't divine the truth beyond a reasonable doubt.

What else ? Take a shot at him ? After all, he might be the one.

You could call the newspaper but there are libel laws for that.

Kavanaugh is a public figure so it's open season. Is that it ?

9/19/18, 3:37 PM

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"that 'beyond a reasonable doubt' is the right standard for the criminal justice system does not entail that it is the right standard for all purposes"

Why can't the standard be; "Describe a place with enough details it can be located by another person, describe a time with enough precision that the accused can plausibly be shown to be at described place, and describe the accused with enough detail that they can picked out of crowd." Do those things, and I think you have sufficient information to investigate a suspected crime. Miss any of those things, and even if someone wants to believe the accuser; it will be nearly impossible to investigate, and we should retain the standard of innocent until proven guilty.

I realize that last part is fantasy. Many people consider Trump, OJ, Clinton, and Bush guilty of things that have not been proven. Still, I like the standard of at least place, time, person as a starting point. It works for everybody, even the elite.

Hahahaha, I’m not here to be liked. If you’re speaking about liberals in general, guess what? We don’t like you much either, how could we, you’ve brought this country closer to ruin. You’re a blithering idiot.

Everyone saw how the economy was under Obama.

Everyone sees it under Trump.

Trump found that magic wand and is bringing manufacturing jobs back.

Disgusting leftists like you think middle class prosperity is ruin. We get it.

Matthew Sablan said..."that 'beyond a reasonable doubt' is the right standard for the criminal justice system does not entail that it is the right standard for all purposes"

-- Has anyone suggested a different standard? "Beyond a reasonable doubt" seems a damn good standard when the result of believing her is to ruin Kavanaugh's life.

9/19/18, 3:50 PM

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1) This will not _ruin his life_. He's already a federal judge. He's got a great family. Even if he doesn't get this position, he'll have a lucrative career. I'm not sure what standard of life-ruining you're going by, by even if believing her entails that he doesn't get the seat, his life isn't ruined. Cry my a damned river.

2) This isn't about what Kavanaugh is entitled to. This is about the stakes of the seat. This is about what is best for the country. Even if Kavanaugh's life might be ruined, it is more important to get this process and this seat right.

"Beyond a reasonable doubt" is what we use in part because we think the error of convicting the innocent is so much worse than the error of acquitting the guilty. But the error of not appointing a particular good person is definitely not so much worse than the error of appointing a bad person. (In fact, given the length of the position, the opposite is true.)

OK. What is fair ? She doesn't have the date or the place. It's 35 years later. She's aa leftist activist(Bernie bro) and DiFi sits on her letter until after the hearings are over.

What would you do ?

9/19/18, 3:49 PM

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I'll fess up. This is a tough question, and I haven't studied procedures or background investigations or the like. Smart people have, and I'd want to hear from them.

It is suspicious that this came out now. (It is not suspicious to me that it did not come out before; I can readily imagine good reason both for the timing of the letter to Feinstein and for Feinstein to sit on the letter.)

Honest question: has there been any public explanation as to why this letter was released? Not as to why it was held as long as it was, but what happened to get the letter public when it got public?

Seeing that the number of comments on this piece are approaching 200 I can assume that the quality is probably in an inverse ration to the number, particularly since Inga and I am sure a couple of other "usual suspects" have appeared.

Thus I will just drop in my compliment to Ann for identifying the hypocrisy of the press in treating Ford as some kind of elite and therefore much more deserving of respect and tolerance than "normal" people. Of course Ford, being an elite, is treated by a different standard than the plebes like us; more like Hillary and Bill or oh so many other elite lefties. Makes me grind my teeth with anger and frustration.

That's why I think Roe v Wade has poisoned the country's politics. It should be overturned. You leftists consider the Court the only branch of government you still hold. You can't win elections with nuts like Occasional Cortex and so you rely on the Court for your social purposes.

I am pro-choice and have done abortions but the politics of Roe v Wade are as bad as Dredd Scott.

Christina King, one of Ms. Ford's classmates, claims that the attempted rape did indeed happen and was "spoken about for days afterwards." What's going on? I thought Ms. Ford never mentioned this incident to anyone until a therapist coaxed it out of her in 2012? And is the date of the attempted rape being moved forward away from the summer and into the school year? Something is rotten here?!! Sad stuff!